My life was set.In five months I would be engaged to a man I didn’t love.

In fifteen months I would marry someone who didn’t love me.

It was a carefully calculated script thought out by those who had the most to gain. The same people who thought happiness came from money.

Everything was going according to plan until I met Hayden Foster. Now, I have to find a way to escape this life—my prison.

Another streak of lightning flashed across the sky. The storm was getting worse. There was no way I’d be able to fly home tonight. Air traffic control would never clear us with the stalled front coming in.

Now or never.I opened the car door and walked up the pathway that led straight to the front door. The heavy rain quickly soaked through my jeans. I’d found a raincoat on the plane, but it did little to keep me dry. The wind was whipping the water around every which way. Once I got to the door, the covered porch helped shelter me some.

I took a deep breath and then knocked three times.

Stay calm. Whatever happens, at least you’ll know.The door opened, and warm light spilled out into the darkness. My word, she’s beautiful. There she stood in her jeans and light pink T-shirt with her blonde hair pulled up into a bun on the top of her head. It was hard not to pull her to me and kiss the life out of her.Her startled eyes met mine. She’d been crying. Seeing her red, blotchy eyes and tear-streaked cheeks slayed me. My fists clenched, and I reminded myself not to rush this. Kory’s lip quivered. Only a couple of feet separated us, but they felt like the width of a canyon.I began to speak, but she beat me to it, her voice sounding sadder than I remembered. “Hayden, what are you doing here?”

Shit. Thunder roared through the skies and my heart plummeted. That wasn’t the reaction I was hoping for.

Unsure how to respond, I blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “Why did you leave?”

There were a million other things I wanted to ask, like why she was upset, but her question threw me. If things were over, I wasn’t going to put myself out there even more.

She looked around outside before pulling me in the house. I stumbled at the sudden movement but caught myself. The door slammed shut, and in the next moment, Kory threw her arms around me, holding me as if her life depended on it. Without another thought, I wound my arms around her, inhaling her sweet vanilla scent. This was the greeting I had hoped for.This felt right.

Kory let out a sniffle before saying, “You came for me. You actually came. When I needed you the most, you came.”

I held her tighter. “I’m sorry it took so long. The way things happened with us and how you left did a number on my head.”

She pulled back, and fresh tears filled her eyes. “You have to go back to Alaska and forget you ever met me. You can’t be here.”

Kristin Mayer is a wife and proud mother. Since an early age, she has always enjoyed reading and writing. While visiting her father one weekend, he suggested that she should take up writing again. With family and a career, she didn’t give it a lot of thought, until a story entered her mind and wouldn’t leave.

At the beginning of 2013, she decided to sit down and write it all down, but she kept it to herself. One sentence developed into two, and before she knew it, she had the makings of a novel.
Kristin tries to live life to the fullest during every moment. She loves to travel, meet new people, and mark items off of her bucket list.
She loves to hear from her readers by email at kristinmayerwrites@gmail.com, on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/AuthorKristinMayer/ , on Twitter @author_Kristin, and on Instagram at kristin.mayer .
Visit her at https://www.authorkristinmayer.com/

Published by Gin

I love books! I have been reading for as long as I can remember. I was the kid with the flashlight under the covers reading until the wee hours. Books were my refuge. I was delighted to discover tree climbing. I would take a book and climb to the top of a Mimosa tree and read for hours...and of course ignore my mother calling for me to do chores. I was committed to reading all of the Nancy Drew stories. Ned was my first book boyfriend. When I was in my early teens I discovered Harlequin romances. I feel in love and it changed my life. I was in love with Love 💕 That’s something for a girl who hadn’t been kissed yet. When I read “he thrust his throbbing member into her womanhood” I was lost to discovering more about this particular brand of romance.
But I don’t just enjoy romance reads. My father-in-law introduced me to the high fantasy genre and I loved it. When I bought my first Nook the world of books really took me by surprise. I was enthralled with all the available genres and to my delight I discovered erotica. In most cases, I was with family on visits to bookstores and you don’t peruse those even if they carried them. Oh the shame of it! ;)
Thanks to Nancy Drew I still enjoy mysteries along with romance, fantasy, erotica, paranormal, steampunk, thrillers, and well, most anything except a horror of a horror. My favorite might be romance suspense but it’s hard for me to pick just one.
I had a serious health issue a few years ago and was forced to quite working after building a career I could be proud of. It was devastating and depressing. I lost myself in books and now spend my days (and nights) reading. I am so appreciative of authors and the wonderful storytelling I’ve found in books. It takes me away from my troubles and introduces me into a world like no other. I love books!
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